Ion implantation is a physical process that is employed in semiconductor apparatus fabrication to selectively implant dopants into a semiconductor substrate (e.g., workpiece, wafer, etc.). Ion implantation can be performed in various ways in order to obtain a particular characteristic on or within a substrate. For example, the diffusivity of a dielectric layer on the substrate can be limited by implanting a specific type of ion into the substrate.
During implantation, one or more ion species, generated by an ion source, are provided to a mass analyzer. The mass analyzer is configured to receive the one or more ion species and to generate a dipole magnetic field that acts upon the ion species to select a particular ion species, based on the charge-to-mass ratio of the ions. The particular ion species is delivered to a downstream workpiece. In a typical serial implantation process the resulting ion beam may either be scanned across a single axis of a workpiece moving in the orthogonal direction, or alternatively a workpiece may be moved along a pair of orthogonal axes with respect to a stationary ion beam.